Page 168 of Bound By Song

“Yeah?” I nuzzle into her neck, brushing my jaw across the tender skin just behind her ear. “You like when I purr for you?”

She nods. “Feels…safe.”

That’s all I needed.

I press in closer, stroking her belly with one hand, the other cradling her hip. The air hums between us, soft and warm, filled only by my purring and her steady breath.

I tilt my face into the crook of her neck and scent her – long, slow inhales that fill me with her sweetness, now tempered with the ache of need and the fading sting of rejection. I want to wash all of that out. Replace it withme.

So I scent mark her.

I brush my jaw across her pulse point, slow and deliberate. Then again, over her throat, where I feel her swallow hard.

My hand skims under her shirt, not with intent – just grounding. My palm rests over her heart, feeling the echo of mine in time with hers. I press a kiss to the side of her head.

“You’re mine, little omega. And I’m sorry it took me this long to act like it.”

“You’re not leaving?” she whispers. There’s a crack in her voice that breaks me.

“Never,” I promise, lips brushing the shell of her ear. “I’ll be here when you wake up. I’ll be here when the fever passes. I’ll be here after. Always.”

She burrows in closer. “Even if I’m a mess?”

I huff a soft breath, amused and aching all at once. “You think this is messy? Baby, you should’ve seen me after my brother died. I was nothing but broken edges.”

She turns, blinking up at me slowly, eyes soft and red andso open. “What happened to him?”

I don’t answer straight away. I stroke her hip instead, steadying myself.

“I couldn’t save him,” I say at last. “He presented and everything went wrong. The world wanted to make him small. Fragile. He was the strongest person I knew but they still managed to break him.”

She watches me with something like awe. “You don’t have to tell me?—”

“I want to. Youdeserveto know.”

She nestles under my jaw and waits.

“I thought if I ever let another omega close, I’d break them. That I’d need too much or ask too hard or take something that couldn’t be given. But you…”

I stroke her thigh, gentle. “You keep showing me I was wrong.”

Her hand finds mine and twines our fingers together. “You never asked too much.”

I purr again, deeper now, and feel her whole body react – softening, settling, scenting me back without even thinking. I stroke her cheek, brush her hair from her brow, kiss the corner of her mouth.

I don’t move for a long time.

Just hold her. Justbe.

Until her breathing slows. Her body calms.

And her tears are finally, finally gone.

She falls asleep like that – curled into me, face tucked beneath my chin, her body finally loose and still. I keep purring for her even as she drifts off, and I don’t stop when her breathing evens. My hand keeps moving, too – stroking her hip, her thigh, brushing the top of her arm. It soothes her. Anchors me.

She’s so fucking beautiful like this.

Vulnerable. Peaceful. Mine.

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